you're right. thanyou very much. today is the first day votes can be cast in one of the battleground states that will help decide the 2012 presidential election. our chief national correspondent john king is in iowa right now where in person absentee voting actually started today. it's pretty early, but they're voting not only in iowa but in other parts of the country as well, john. >> reporter: wolf, 35 states plus the district of columbia allow some form of in person early voting. as you noted, the iowa voting kicked off today. we're here in iowa city. we saw a pretty healthy line. mostly students, mostly obama supporters . mostly obama supporters on day one. now, republicans say that's overblown. if you've made up your mind to vote even before the debates, you are going to be for one candidate or the other no matter what and you are going to vote. so if you're voting early, voting late, it doesn't matter. but one of the places obama thinks it helps is they had a big swell in the youth vote last time. they had the